Summary
That’s all the live coverage for the day, thanks for following along. Some key links and developments from our reporting today:
Trump said he will meet with Putin in Alaska next week to discuss the war in Ukraine.
The Polish prime minister said a “freeze” in the war on Ukraine might be close after speaking with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
As JD Vance arrived in England for his summer holiday, the vice-president suggested the US and UK have “disagreements” on Gaza including over whether to recognize a Palestinian state.
The Republican attorney general of Texas on Friday asked the state supreme court to vacate the seats of 13 Democratic legislators who have left the state to stop a vote on a redrawn congressional map sought by Trump.
The Trump administration is seeking a $1bn settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, a White House official said on Friday.
Trump removed Billy Long as the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service two months after he was sworn in.
The Department of Justice has reportedly issued two subpoenas to Letitia James, the New York attorney general who has been repeatedly criticized by Donald Trump.
An appeals court on Friday tossed out a judge’s finding of contempt against the Trump administration in a case over the notorious deportations of Venezuelans from the US to an El Salvador prison without due process.
Preet Bharara, the former US attorney, said in a statement he was representing US senator Adam Schiff, following reports that the Department of Justice had appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Democrat from California.
Ed Martin, a rightwing activist who served as interim US attorney for Washington DC, was tapped by attorney general Pam Bondi for the job, according to NBC News.
Donald Trump has previously accused Schiff of mortgage fraud, a claim that the senator has forcefully denied. In a July video responding to the claims, Schiff said: “The basis of his accusation is that I own a home in Maryland, and I own my home in California. Big surprise – members of Congress, almost all of them, own more than one home or rent more than one home because we’re required to be on both coasts … Donald Trump [is] trying to bring about political retribution, retaliation.”
In a statement published by a Politico reporter this evening, Bharara said, “The allegations against Senator Schiff are transparently false, state, and long debunked.” Bharara said the “bias” of Martin’s appointment was “glaring”, giving that Schiff had placed a hold on his nomination to be US attorney: “Any supposed investigation led by him would be the very definition of weaponization of the justice process.”
Martin has defended January 6 rioters, and his US attorney nomination ultimately failed.
